Proxying another's idea, from CoinSummit. The request: It would be useful to limit the lifetime of a bitcoin address. Intentionally prevent (somehow) bitcoins being sent to a pubkey/pkh after the key expires.
You could append "don't ["permit"|confirm] after X [time|block]" to the address I suppose. The metadata would not be digitally signed, but it would be hash-sealed. As "address" is a client-side notion, wallet clients would be the ones enforcing such a rule. Bitcoin protocol of course knows about keys, and key expiration is a well known and useful concept in public key cryptography. The best insertion point in the protocol for key expiration is an open question, if it's even a good idea at that level at all. Some flag "no more TxOuts exactly like this [after X block?]"? I readily admit I don't have good answers, but it does seem valuable IMO to * Prevent users from accidentally sending to an "expired" TxOut/pkh. This happens in the field. * Discourage address reuse * Enable sites that generate lots of keys to rotate ancient keys off their core systems. (HD wallets mitigate this) -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist BitPay, Inc. https://bitpay.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Want fast and easy access to all the code in your enterprise? Index and search up to 200,000 lines of code with a free copy of Black Duck Code Sight - the same software that powers the world's largest code search on Ohloh, the Black Duck Open Hub! Try it now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bds _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
